In India caste system have been examined through Indological, Socio-anthropological and sociological perspectives. While the Indological examined caste from the scriptural point of view, social anthropological from the cultural point of view and sociologists from the stratificational point of view. Many scholars and reformers like Vivekananda, Jyotirao Phule, Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Periyar worked to remove the evils of the caste system. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and E.V.R. Periyar, both of them worked in the field of abolition of caste system and the evils pertaining to it. But the approach path and their ideals were different entirely. While Periyar directly attacked religion as the main cause of the evil, Ambedkar had attacked the system of caste and its workings. Ambedkar’s Caste and Class in “The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar” and Periyar, E. V. R."Genesis of the Self-Respect Movement” reflects the differences and their ideals regarding it.
Ambedkar in Caste and Class talks of the system and the mechanisms of
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He becomes irrational and his lack of sense is being very prevalent when he mentions Gandhi as “drunken mad man” in Rationalist Thoughts. Ambedkar is practical in his approach. Even though he does not sympathize with Gandhi and his thoughts, but he identifies and talks of the evils pertaining in the caste in the society instead of accusing the religion directly. As he says, “…if the Brahmins are Aryans the Untouchables are also Aryans. If the Brahmins are Dravidians, the Untouchables are also Dravidians…”(Ambedkar, 1948). Ambedkar here affirms that race has nothing to do with the caste-class strata. He considers caste as a perverse version of Varna (Ambedkar B. , 2002) and religious rules and practices that are woven around it. Periyar forthrightly mentions religion as meaningless and a domain of Brahmins which is his personal
Thousands of years ago, Indian society developed into a complex system based on different classes. This system is known as the Caste System. It separated Indians into different castes based on what class they were born into. As thousands of years went by, this system grew larger and became further complex (Wadley 189). This system caused frustration for the Indian citizens because they were receiving inequality.
First, she explains how her family’s maid, Mehri, fell in love with their neighbor and wrote to him every week. When Marji’s father finds out, he talks to the boy and ends this relationship. Despite having shown quite progressive ideals featuring equality and having many communist friends, he now cites Mehri’s status as a maid to justify the incompatibility. Young Marji then establishes the hypocrisy in this by shouting, “Dad, are you for or against social classes?” (Satrapi 37). The irony of one so seemingly in favor of social homogeneity suddenly upholding categorization by wealth shows how inequality is such a major part of society that even those who disagree often revert and continue to conform with it. A further example of irony can be seen when the Satrapi family gets pulled over after a party, and Marji and her grandmother must throw out all of the alcohol before the men can search the house and find it. However, her father enters , explaining that “Their faith has nothing to do with ideology! A few bills were all he needed to forget the whole thing!!” (Satrapi 110) Those with authority seem only to believe in the laws of their religion when they want it to and can thus be bribed to ignore them. The irony of this intermittent and immoral belief draws attention to the fact that the opportunity to escape punishment would only be available to those who had the extra money to give away. Poorer people would not be able to afford to bribe the police and would have to either follow the laws completely or face punishment, while those who are wealthier can get away with doing neither. Satrapi’s occasional ideological contradictions manage to effectively point out the flaws in her society, especially as they pertain to class
Firstly, religion and philosophy greatly affected life in Ancient India. Document A states, “India has been an important part of three major world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.” These religions change people’s day-to-day lives, because of their beliefs. For example, Hindus life their lives based on their dharma, or their spiritual duties they have to fulfill in their lifetime. Hindus believe that by following their dharma and being a good person, they will establish good karma, which is the effect(s) that good or bad actions have on the soul. By establishing good karma, Hindus believe that they will be born into a better caste, or social division. This will definitely change the way people act, since they will want to be born into a better life in
Roy asserts that people’s fears of upsetting the power balance based in the caste system often leads to a blind acceptance of the status quo and a continuous sense of self-deprecation by individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy. When Velutha’s father fears that his son’s affair with a Touchable will have potentially disastrous consequences for him, he serves his own self-interest and is willing to endanger is son. He exposes the affair to the grandmother of the woman his son is having an affair with, revealing the extreme degree to which caste and conforming to societal norms drive the behaviors of individuals in Indian society; “So Vellya Paapen had come to tell Mamamachi himself. As a Paravan and a man with mortgaged body parts he considered it his duty…they had made the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible really happen…Offering to kill his son. To tear him limb from limb” (242). His fear of disrupting the status quo (i.e. the Indian social hierarchy) is so great that he is willing to sacrifice his own son’s life to protect his own. Rather than considering the genuine...
Friedrich Nietzsche and Mahatma Gandhi, two mammoth political figures of their time, attack the current trend of society. Their individual philosophies and concepts suggest a fundamental problem: if civilization is so diseased, can we overcome this state of society and the sickness that plagues the minds of the masses in order to advance? Gandhi and Nietzsche attain to answer the same proposition of sickness within civilization, and although the topic of unrest among both may be dissimilar, they have parallel means of finding a cure to such an illness as the one that plagues society. Nietzsche’s vision of spiritual health correlates directly with Gandhi’s image of industrialism and the self-sufficiency. This correlation prevails by highlighting the apparent sickness that is ubiquitous in both of the novels.
In India, the religion of Hinduism in particular, provides two sources of support in regards to the social structure of the era. These sources are the Vedas and the Upanishads. According to The Rig Veda when Purusha’s body was divided “his mouth became the brāhman; his two arms were made into the rajanya; his two thighs the vaishyas; from his two feet the shūdra was born (Reilly, 92).” By splitting up the body in this way, there was a justification for the creation of the varna or caste system. The highest class or Brahmin’s were the priest class, who were also known as the most pure. In this role, they were the connecting figures between Purusha and his people, which is reflective of them being his mouth. The next upper division class was the Ksatriya or warrior/leader class. In the class, the role was to do the fighting which was reflective of them being Purusha’s arms. The artisan/farmer or middle class was known as the vaisyas. In this class, members represented the role of the thighs of Purusha, who were responsible for doing the brunt or tougher jobs in society. The nethermost social class was the sudra, who were serfs and servants. They represented the feet of Pursha, which is reflective of their status as the lowest class. Along with the Vedas, the Upanishads served as a written guideline for the varna. These works urged the concept of doin...
We are lucky, today, that the majority of the world’s nations are democracies. This has only been the case in very recent times. For the greater part of human history, society has subscribed to the belief that birth is the most important determinant of one’s future. In Elizabethan England, this was especially true. Those born into the nobility enjoyed a lifetime of privilege, while those born outside of their ranks mainly existed to serve them. A century later, the British encountered an even stricter form of this belief when they conquered India. The Hindu caste system, which dictated one’s future based on birth just as British society did, was deemed even by the English to be excessively restrictive. After gaining control of the Subcontinent, the conquerors attempted to supplant the caste system with the semblance of a meritocracy. The new subjects of the Empire, instead of embracing this imposition of a foreign culture’s values, responded with general unrest and discontent, showing that no society, no matter how unfair or prejudiced, tolerates interference well. Shakespeare’s King Lear demonstrates the same concept: that any violation of society’s conception of the natural order brings chaos, and that the only way to restore harmony is to conform to the expectations of that society.
It is these ideas that that sometimes promote the wrong image to Indian society. By promoting the ideas of caste people may be influenced to do the same in real life which can result in an array of situations. People may run away from home, or even commit suicide as a result of not being allowed to be with whom they please.
The four main stages of life in Hinduism also take the caste system into account. The first stage is that of a student, being led by a teacher. T...
Example: at that time, the term “kaffir” was not considered unpleasant nor offensive, however, Gandhi’s usage of the Arabic word “kaffir” in which he meant “non-believer” and had been used to degrade Hindus by Muslims, was surprising. 6 Pro 1: Topic Sentence: Gandhi was indeed racist and that is explained more thoroughly below. Explanation: he used offensive terms to disregard Africans and attack them.
Ahimsa has been attached high position in ethics and religion. Gandhiji’s work cited the work of Budda, Mahaviair and Christ which has allowed emphasis on Ahimsa in a range of religious discourses. This became a powerful and was used against the British authority in India. This explicitly demonstrates how during the time of colonisation in India, Ghandi’s ideologies were drawn upon in combating the British
In each society, there are different types of rules and ideologies that are used in order to help govern its people. Within these communities, these rules create a social hierarchy developed through a ranked system based on either economic value or religious beliefs. A type of ranked system that most people are familiar with is the Caste System in India, which is a system of classification in a society based on birth. This complex social structure is most prevalent in India, where social hierarchy is in affiliation with Hinduism. It recognizes two concepts known as Varna and Jati. Varna is a word in Sanskrit meaning color and includes four main groups: the Brahmans, Kshtriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. The fifth group, the most segregated caste in the system, is the Untouchables. Within each Varna contains an array of sub-caste called Jatis, which are also based on birth. The rules of the cases are governed through religious ideas of purity and pollution. These two socially constructed ideologies determine whether or not you were respected in the community. Caste assignments in India are predestined at birth rather than a personal choice. Individuals act and dress like those of their own caste in public, due to strict caste laws. Pressures of these rules tend to brainwash people into conforming into what society considers pure, as we’ll see in Kakar & Kakar’s reading. As human nature takes precedent, caste rules become less relevant. Indulging in one’s own desires or needs, especially during times of hardship, outweighs any types of rules that we’ll see in Freeman’s reading and the movie Distant Thunder. Though the caste system is such an intrinsic part of life, when faced with needs to survive, it becomes nothing more than just a...
From beginning to end, the novel, “The God of Small Things”, authored by Arundhati Roy, makes you very aware of a class system (caste) that separates people of India in many ways. This separation among each other is surprisingly so indoctrinated in everyone that many who are even disadvantaged by this way of thinking uphold its traditions, perhaps for fear of losing even more than they already have, or simply because they do not know any other way. What’s worse, people seen as the lowest of the low in a caste system are literally called “untouchable”, as described in Roy’s novel, allowing, according to Human Rights Watch:
Divided into four major social categories, the caste system categorizes Hindus, who act accordingly to their caste, into Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra. Another class, the “untouchables,” is considered outside of the system. These five different classes of society define each person greatly. Castes are unchangeable and rarely intermarry. This social division is yet another example of how religion disbands organizations of people.
The current manifestations of the caste system are now far more generalized across the Indian subcontinent than was the case in former times. Caste as we now recognize has been endangered, shaped and perpetuated by comparatively recent political and social developments. This is evident even i...